People who are saying that "well the Wii dominated last gen, so Nintendo have nothing to worry about" in this regard may be missing a key point that the Wii dominated half of last gen, then sort of completely fell off a cliff to the point where by the end of the gen it will have almost completely surrendered its once massive lead. Similar concerns of the OP were raised in the early days of the Wii (ie. that its lack of power will hurt it in the long run, particularly regarding third-party support), but of course Wii fans (who are usually dissing Pachter for his predictions...) were totally sure this would never happen and mocked anyone who said otherwise. Anyway, until we find out the specs of the next XBox and Playstation, who knows.

but the thing is the Wii never really had any third party support so it didn't fall away it simply didn't really exist. The Wii U at launch has a better collection of third party titles, exclusive and otherwise, than the PS3 had in late 2007.

As for sales of the Wii falling off... yes, they sure did. However it's worth remembering that they matched the sales of the PS3 and 360 combined for the first half of it's life and during it's decline it dropped to selling at the same rate. It didn't surrender it's massive lead it maintained it. The reasons it sold so well early in its life are, I'd argue, factors still largely present with the Wii U.

I'm not concerned myself. It's not like Nintendo is going to dump the machine in six months. Sony has a lot of worries from LG and Samsung which are eating more and more of their lunch. They appear to be betting the farm on 4K TVs, which seems like quite a gamble; if no one takes them up on that I think a replacement for PS3 isn't going to be that high a priority.

Honestly just play the games and stop worrying about things you have no control over. The biggest problem all consumer electronics companies are facing is the state of the economy. If people don't have the cash to buy these things, then it won't matter what the competition is like because none of them will succeed.

Last I checked, everyone didn't believe Pachter despite the man actually getting close to hitting some nails.

@skywake
Fair enough, but personally I can't see the Wii U having the same phenomenal mainstream success in its first couple of years that the Wii had, to build up such a lead. I also haven't seen that much evidence of particularly stronger third-party support at the moment. Some last-gen ports (same as Wii), though I seem to see more stories about big games that won't be ported to Wii U that will be, no big exclusives that I'm aware of (Bayonetta 2 will be great, but it isn't a big game). But anyway, I'll stop there... I don't want to sound like a doom-merchant!

I do wonder how many developers will be able to afford the development costs for PS4 and NextBox. How many struggled with the current gen?

It looks like Platinum Games are focusing on Wii U. And If they get decent sales on Wii U, will they want to gamble with the next gen? Not everyone is EA

I figured that we would hear about some new third party games before now. The Wii U release list for 2013 looks like the Wii list, almost nothing on it... is there anything coming this year that wasn't originally announced a few months ago? seems like a good start that is going to be followed by 6 months of nothing.

I don't think it's fair to say there will be six months of nothing. After all we've already seen an announcement of Lego Marvel Universe today. I suspect there are other titles in development, but no one is far enough along to project a release date.

I expected to at least see some shovelware on the list... where is Ninjabread Man 2!!! just kidding, I don't want that game.

Wii had tons of games it's following year. I admit, I'm running out of new games and going back to the old stuff, but Pikmin 3, Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, and Bayonetta 2 will be keeping me busy for at least a month each. More for Monster Hunter since I'm getting the 3DS version, too. Nintendo has the console ready and easily available to game developers, so they need to step up their game, too. Third parties can essentially bring any game to Wii U, so there's no excuse this time around. As for console locked content, that just adds more value to the games you have on the console, and I'm sure PS/Xbox will follow suit, even for physical copies of games. Looks like digitals the way to go now.

Oh ya, Panarama, Lego, more news on Smash Bros. and Zelda, plus Pokemon 3DS is gonna show up this year, so hold your horses.

I read somewhere that the Wii-U was in development in 2010. That is a year before Skyward Sword was released. I think NIntendo made the mistake of not having a Zelda or 3D Mario. I have some friends who are casual NIntendo gamers and did not buy the Wii-U because if its bad launch titles. They wanted to see a 3D mario game or a Zelda game. Anyways, back tot my point. I think NIntendo should have saved Skyward Sword for Wii-U launch. Let's face it Skyward Sword needed HD, that was about the only thing it lacked. Nintendo should have spent that extra year perfecting it, beefing it up with HD graphics and fixing the story glitch. I guarantee of they saved Skyward Sword for Wii-U they would sell way more consoles. Now my friends are waiting for the price drop.

You seem unaware of how difficult it is to develop for a console that's still in development. The dev kits and hardware are constantly subject to change. If they saved Skyward Sword for the Wii U, it likely would not have been at nearly the quality we got it, and the HD would hardly have made a difference. Large scale projects like that are near impossible on changing hardware. It's the reason most consoles end up having droughts right after release and we don't see stellar titles until a couple years into its life. Skyward Sword was at the end of the Wii's life because it takes time to learn to tap into a console's capabilities. To make it for the Wii U would have taken quite more time and experience with the hardware and it's unrealistic to expect that much in a launch title.

Also, Skyward Sword began development well before the Wii U began development. A year or two would not have been enough time.

Yeah, I have no experience in game designing, so I wouldn't know.

I think given how early it is for the system, it is doing pretty well and we have some quality titles, and a few more in the coming months. Be patient, it will take off.

Wii U is Nintendo's last console?!? After the new and cool tech they made they are stopping console creation?!? NO! Most of the games on the Wii that were interesting on the Wii is Nintendo's games and a few third-party titles. The Wii U has a lot of possibilities for gaming creativity, and now they're going to stop soon? I hope this isn't determined yet, but if it ends up being that rotten truth then I'm gonna Hulk-out! The Wii U certainly tads out the Xbox 360 and the PS3. And will tad out the PS4 and the 720,

It's called Valve, not Value. Not trying to be a dink, just letting you know.

Lol, oops, didn't notice that mistake XD

Honestly I don't think the jump from ps3 to ps4 is going to be all that big... The jump from ps1 to ps2 and ps2 to ps3 were huge because the resolution went up.... We are locked in at 1080p until new HDTV's with higher resolutions are released (maybe in 20 years?).... The move from ps3 to ps4 will be pretty small, and not many people will be able to tell the difference. I'm more concerned with gameplay, as I have PC gaming machine I built last year to play games with amazing graphics that even the next playstation can't touch.